PALERMO- President of Sicily, Rosario Crocetta, placed the blame on the state government for the wildfires in Sicily in a speech to the Senate on Tuesday.

“The responsibility comes with having dismantled the Forest Corps police, splitting resources and this has made the fleet fail. I referred it to the board, we have all the relevant documents: in March, when we would have been able to call for tenders [for aerial means of fighting wildfires], we were told that the agreement for these resources would be signed, then in May it didn’t happen and there wasn’t sufficient time to then call for tenders”. Crocetta went on to ask the Presidency of the Council to send armed forces into Sicily, explaining that “this is a matter of public order”. He spoke to the Environmental Commission at the Senate on Tuesday. The meeting was called to discuss the outbreak of wildfires in Sicily and how the region can act to prevent them.

Head of Civil Protection, Fabrizio Curcio, was also present at the Environmental Commission and criticised Crocetta’s remarks following his speech. He said that Sicily’s President “refuses to understand the content of a law that has existed for 17 years” whilst “seeking to cover up regional inefficiency with imaginary state negligence”. He added: “Without going into every single inaccuracy reported, I am honestly astounded by his comments”.

It is not the first time the two men have disagreed on the issue of fires in Sicily; Curcio has previously denounced an “inadequate regional organisation” for fire prevention whereas Crocetta replied that Curcio should “stop passing on the blame” and that he  “didn’t know the whole story” surrounding the transferal of resources from the Forest Corps to the Fire Service.

Wildfires have ravaged through Sicily during the whole of July, which has been a month of drought and heatwaves. On Saturday, a blaze destroyed part of the Zingaro nature reserve in the district of San Vito lo Capo, which was devastated by flames during the summer of 2012. On Tuesday, further fires were reported in Cefalu, Castellmare a Golfo, Enna, Siracusa, Sciacca and Messina.

Police have arrested several suspected pyromaniacs in conjunction with the fires, some of whom are young teenagers, according to reports by local authorities .

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